Dragon abilities

[CapnZapp]

To you it's not a punishment, but to some but not all players it is. I can tell you from experience that being 1 to 2 levels behind everyone else SUCKS for me.

Corrected that for you.

 

[davidnoal]

Corrected that for you.

The beer, pop and chips I offer when they play are free.

The levels, though, they earn.

 

[abyssaldeath]

The beer, pop and chips I offer when they play are free.

The levels, though, they earn.

Free food and drinks, but I have to earn my levels? I can get behind that.

 

[MrBeens]

No.

Whatever you think, a 10% (2 out of 20) difference cannot be the difference between "being much less of a threat" and "eating up your PCs".

4E may be balanced and non-swingy, but if your observation were true, the game would for all practical purposes be completely independent of luck.

Remember there is a significant probability remaining between rolling one lower or one higher than the average (over the course of a single fight; less than a hundred rolls or so).

What you're implying more or less requires you to replace all d20 rolls with a static result of 11. This is clearly not the case.

Best Regards,
Zapp

It's not just the + to hit, it is the combination of all of the other things I (and another poster repeated) listed - feats, extra powers, magic items etc.

For example -

When my wizard leveled from 3 - 4 he went from having a + 4 to hit (+3 int and 1/2 level) to +7 (+4 int, 1/2 level and gaining a magic item).
My armour class increased from 14 (cloth, +3 int, 1/2 level) to 18 (leather (feat) +4 int, 1/2 level)

A level 4 character is significantly more powerful than a level 2.

If the OP and his group are having fun then that is great, but it is not an insignificant thing to have large level disparities in a group. The OP asked for advice about encounter make up for his group and we pointed out one problem he has.

 

[AumShantih]

For what it's worth:
In the current campaign I'm running, we had a large group (8 or 9) 2nd Level PCs beat up a Young Red Dragon (Level 7 Solo). However, they had all their dailies, and used them to good effect.

With 4 or 5 PCs, it wouldn't have worked.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

It's not just the + to hit, it is the combination of all of the other things I (and another poster repeated) listed - feats, extra powers, magic items etc.

For example -

When my wizard leveled from 3 - 4 he went from having a + 4 to hit (+3 int and 1/2 level) to +7 (+4 int, 1/2 level and gaining a magic item).
My armour class increased from 14 (cloth, +3 int, 1/2 level) to 18 (leather (feat) +4 int, 1/2 level)

A level 4 character is significantly more powerful than a level 2.

If the OP and his group are having fun then that is great, but it is not an insignificant thing to have large level disparities in a group. The OP asked for advice about encounter make up for his group and we pointed out one problem he has.

Exactly. The level disparity, especially at low levels, cna be huge. The difference between my Fighter at Level 1 and Level 2 was huge as well. My to-hit went up by 3 (1/2 level and I dropped my Battleaxe for a +1 longsword) and my AC went up by 2 and I gained some resistance abilities (1/2 level, found +1 blackiron armor). My HP also increased by almost 30%! I had 31 at level 1, and then gained 6 more and took Toughness as my level 2 feat. So the survivability of my character was massively increased between those two levels.

Even without the magic items, I would've seen at least 50% of the improvements that I'm listing here, which is still a big difference. +1 versus the same enemies means you hit 5% more, and +2 means you hit 10% more. So if you have a character in the party that's level 2, he'll probably be hitting anywhere from 5% to 15% less frequently than the rest of the higher level memebers. Against that level 7 Dragon though? He'll be woefully behind and will probably need to roll at least a 16 or 17 to hit, if he even can hit.

Another issue is that if you're doing accelerated advancement, it will just increase the level disparity over time. What about when you have level 2 PC's with level 6 PC's? Are you going to throw a level 9 monster at them? Since monster to-hit and defenses go up by +1/level, that means a level 9 would be +7 compared to those level 2 PC's. Once you add in the slightly higher stats of a soldier, especially if it's an elite or solo, you might be looking at a no-hit situation where the level 2 PC's literally cannot hit the monster. How fun would that be?

 

[Milambus]

I tend to agree with what most people are saying, and if I ever get a 4e campaign going I plan to do group XP with everyone remaining the same level.

However, I though I would offer some comments to support the other side.

I've been mostly playing LFR games, which group players together into level ranges. 1-4 being the first. In the games that I have played in, the level difference has had some effect on the game play for lower level players, but really it hasn't been that dramatic. In a game with a full range of players (some 4's, some 1's, some in between), and playing the modules as high level, the level 1's can have some survivability problems. Though we were a bit light on healer's in that game also (my 2nd level TacLord being the only leader). Level 2 characters really didn't seem to have the same trouble.

 

[Erisea]

I've been mostly playing LFR games, which group players together into level ranges. 1-4 being the first. In the games that I have played in, the level difference has had some effect on the game play for lower level players, but really it hasn't been that dramatic. In a game with a full range of players (some 4's, some 1's, some in between), and playing the modules as high level, the level 1's can have some survivability problems. Though we were a bit light on healer's in that game also (my 2nd level TacLord being the only leader). Level 2 characters really didn't seem to have the same trouble.

I can agree with this; I've just started LFR, and my level 1 TacLord went in to a high-tier adventure with a l4 and 2 l3s (I think). I was the only healer, and dropped to 2hp, and 5hp on two occasions, but I held my own. I got the first kill in two encounters (although not the only damage on them), kept the swordmage alive and enabled at least 3 or 4 hits on the solo at the end that would otherwise have missed.

Yeah, I was a little bit soft and chewy compared to the others, and missed more, doing less damage, but I wouldn't say I was worthless in there.

If I'd been the only defender instead of only healer, I admit it would probably have been a bit trickier...

 

[Nail]

I actually decided that everyone is always at the highest XP value for my games to prevent exactly this problem. I see no reason to 'punish' players who can't always show up, and encounter balancing is a lot easier. 1-2 levels of difference might not seem much, but I'm planning to work the tiers into my storyline (so the minute they hit level 11 the scale will change), and I really don't envy the level 9 players who are in the same party as a level 11 character.

It's not a punishment. While I use an accelerated leveling rate, they still must earn the levels. So, about every 4-6 hard encounters everyone there gets a level.

To you it's not a punishment, but to the player it is. I can tell you from experience that being 1 to 2 levels behind everyone else SUCKS.

Doubtful. We are a bit more old-school than the average D&Der.

As one old-school DM to another: it's not much fun to play a PC that has little chance of contributing meaningfully. IIWY, I'd level 'em all up equally. If you want to reward those players that always show up, give the players that always show up the better magic items. Simple, effective, and allows everyone to contribute and have fun.

 

[davidnoal]

As one old-school DM to another: it's not much fun to play a PC that has little chance of contributing meaningfully. IIWY, I'd level 'em all up equally. If you want to reward those players that always show up, give the players that always show up the better magic items. Simple, effective, and allows everyone to contribute and have fun.

I'm not looking for a fix. As I said earlier. If you don't play, you don't level. I don't think that is unreasonable. My players understand and accept that.

However, since the point of the thread has pretty much been taken care of by pointing me to the draconomicon...

Mechanically there is little difference between two or three magic items and a level. Between 2 or 3 items you'd probably have 1 more power, and +1 or +2 to some defenses and attacks.

So, passing out more magic items to certain players is really not a solution. In fact, it will cause exactly the same issue.